Alumni- Department of Anthropology - University of Connecticut

The primary goals of this dissertation are: 1) to understand the agricultural system at Kenan Tepe during the Ubaid period including the types of crops grown, the agronomic methods used, and the purposes they served; and 2) to identify activity areas related to agriculture within a well preserved burnt Ubaid house. The Ubaid (7,300–6,100 BP) was a period of incipient social complexity that developed in the flat alluvial plains of southern Mesopotamia and gradually expanded north. Archaeobotanical remains from the site of Kenan Tepe in southeastern Turkey currently provide the best source of information about Ubaid period agriculture. One hundred and fifteen samples spanning four Ubaid occupation phases were recovered using flotation from a variety of contexts, including a burnt house. Although some samples were sterile, the overall botanical preservation is excellent. The remains were sorted using a stereo-zoom microscope and identified using the archaeobotanical reference collection at the University of Connecticut. Data were analyzed with a variety of statistical techniques including ubiquity, proportions, and correspondence analysis. The results were interpreted using archaeobotanical middle range theory and plant ecology. Wheat, emmer in particular, was the primary crop grown for human consumption. Two-row barley was also grown, possibly for human consumption, but dung remains suggest that it was cultivated for animal feed and was mixed with cereal straw and the occasional weed plant. Legumes are well represented: lentil and pea were grown for human consumption and small amount were fed to livestock. Data from the burnt house highlighted a number of activity areas: cereal drying and flax preparation on the roof of the structure, storage of grains and animal dung within the house structure, and late stage cereal processing on the roof. The preservation of large numbers of in situ botanical remains makes it possible to better understand the daily life of the house's inhabitants. Consequently, this dissertation illuminates the agricultural system of Ubaid period Kenan Tepe as well as how domestic tasks were organized on the household level.

Successfully defended on 8/23/2011

Kateryna Maltseva

Values and Norms of Prosocial Behavior in Modern Sweden

My dissertation research explores the cultural meaning of prosociality in Sweden by focusing on prosocial cognition formulated as values and norms. Main questions to be examined in my dissertation are: the relationship between Swedish cultural values and norms; the impact of social support available on perceived cultural saliency of prosocial ideas; and the effects of values/norms on mental health in Sweden. The study tests the validity of the qualitative distinction between more variable individual-level values and more consensual collective-level values, assesses their differential effects on self-reported individual subjective well-being, and estimates the degree of norms/values inconsistency and its influence on mental health in the Swedish sample. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodology, cognitive data associated with prosocial ideas in Swedish society, including their structure, accessibility in recall and intergenerational transmission, as well as information on social support and psychological health status was collected during 2008-2009 in Skåne, Sweden.
The most significant findings of the study concern the following relationships. In regression analysis, strong consistent predictive effects of social support were found for prosocial values but not for norms. Collective level values scales were found to be best predicted by the degree of social support available and by demographic variables dealing with primary and secondary socialization. Remarkably, all collective level values scales, regardless of their content, formed a consistent pattern of significant positive correlations with one’s desire “to be a good person”. Having social support reliably predicted perception of prosocial ideas as salient to the Swedish society. However, when prosocial ideas were formulated as norms, one’s opting to abide by the normative prescriptions, regardless of their contents, in correlation analysis was correlated with measures of empathy, and by one’s beliefs in human goodness. With respect to mental health, correlations between some tendencies in Swedish cultural norms dimensions with negative psychological health (distrust, fear and insecurity) were found. Personal values were not linked systematically to any measurement. Social network size was not found to be a predictor of prosocial tendencies. Qualitative and quantitative results converge that, despite high consensus levels, the collective level values display more clarity than norms in Sweden.

Successfully defended on 4/27/2010

Ann M. Cheney

The Contours of Womanhood: Living with “Eating Disorders” in Southern Italy

This dissertation investigates practices of food refusal among young, educated southern Italian women coming of age in “traditional” social contexts in the region of Calabria, southern Italy.
By combining feminist theory and anthropological analysis, I provide an alternative approach to the study of “eating disorders,” disrupting prevailing psychological frameworks that pathologize women’s experiences of food refusal. Moving away from biomedical understandings of “eating disorders,” the findings are grounded in women’s narratives of suffering, illustrating that practices of food refusal are deployed by women to negotiate and contest gender and kin roles and ideologies. Focusing on how southern Italian women’s social identities are constructed and negotiated through kinship and gender relations, this dissertation illuminates the ways in which daily food rituals act as a source of authority, prestige, and power for southern Itlaian women.
Framed around the voices of women who engaged in practices of food refusal, the dissertation analyzes how disengagement from exchange networks that strengthen social identities and relationships enables a woman to change gender norms. Thus, food refusal becomes a conduit through which women can subtly disengage from being a “good” daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, aunt, and/or fiancée, and contest social relations that inevitably operate to legitimize social identities that they reject. By focusing on the social reality where the mundane—the minutiae of daily life—are played out and where relations of power are enacted, it is possible to conceptualize food refusal as a practice through which young women vie for power and authority in their everyday lives. Ultimately, this research advocates for a rethinking of the categories “anorexia,” “bulimia” and other related “eating disorders” and towards a demedicalized understanding of women’s practices of food refusal.

Successfully defended on 6/06/2010

Rebecca Beebe

Cultural Normalization of Violence among a Detention Population

Most research on the consequences of violence exposure on adolescent mental health (1) focuses on acute forms of exposure (e.g. being shot or shot at) and ignores chronic exposure and (2) treats violent behavior as a problem of delinquent individuals often ignoring the environment in which violent behaviors develop. The neighborhood effect, as outlined by W.J. Wilson, points to the cultural level and superorganic properties that affect perceptions and decisions of individuals within that neighborhood. If perceptions are developed and decisions are made in a neighborhood environment where violence is chronic, individuals’ perceptions and decisions may vary from those where violence is spurious. Perceptions and decisions of adolescents who grow up surrounded by violence may share ideas and behaviors that reflect a normalization of violence.
This dissertation examines data on violence exposure and mental health collected from 56 boys incarcerated in a CT juvenile detention center. The data reveal that the detainees are exposed to high levels of violence in their neighborhoods. The chronic violence the boys are exposed to leads to a perception of violence that differs from ‘mainstream’ culture. Detainees know about the prevailing culture and can state that culture's version of how they should respond to potentially violent situations – nonviolently. To detainees, however, those norms belong to another world. They define violence as normal, and engage in behaviors that reflect survival strategies in a violence environment. By criteria enshrined in DSM-IV, detainees exhibit a high incidence of mental health disorders, particularly oppositional defiant disorder and other forms of psychopathology. These criteria assume the norms of the prevailing culture. They pathologize these alternative cultural understandings, which appear to constitute reasoned responses to the violent environments in which detainees consistently report growing up.

Successfully defended on 12/7/2010

Asha Cat Srinivasan Shipman

“Mate Selection in Modern India”

This dissertation examines attitudes towards mate selection and marriage among Hindus in Bangalore, India. Globalization recharged India’s economy and has perhaps provided a more permanent foothold to Western cultural practices, including those concerning mate selection and marriage. Media portray young Indian transnational workers as budding capitalists swayed by Western values, yet data assessing such a cultural transition do not exist. This study employs ethnographic and quantitative methods to assess whether young transnational employees do, in fact, think differently than their elders and their non-globalized peers. Informant groups are: Marriageable men and women (18-35) working for transnational companies and in traditional occupations and parents of marriageable children belonging to either group. Research methods include an analysis of matrimonial advertisements, semi-structured interviews, and a structured survey.Semi-structured interviews and surveys reveal significant differences between male and female marriageable children and between generations, but not based on occupation.

Matrimonials indicate a preference for caste-endogamous marriage, beautiful brides and financially-secure grooms. Parents and marriageable children differ on the criteria they consider important in choosing a spouse and on their general model of marriage. Parents favor caste-endogamous marriages arranged by family elders. Marriageable children express greater support for love marriages and strongly desire a prolonged courtship period (a modern Western practice) before making the decision to marry. Many marriageable women consider marriage an equal partnership and desire a spouse who will blend easily with friends and family. Some women are willing to risk social sanctions in order to find their perfect match on their own terms. Marriageable men desire physically attractive spouses in addition to many of the same criteria that women cite. However, for most men, conforming to their families’ wishes trumped their own preferences. I explain the differing models of mate selection and marriage as consequences of religious and cultural beliefs, economics, and evolutionary adaptation. This study contributes to the field by providing detailed, ethnographically-supported quantitative data on mate selection and marriage in contemporary Indian culture. Additionally, these findings confirm a shift in attitudes and the emergence of youthful individualism within the context of a traditionally hierarchic, patriarchic and collective society.

Successfully defended on 12/9/2010

Susan DiVietro

“Sanctions and Sanctuary” Revisited: Domestic Violence and Cultural Models of Intervention"

This dissertation investigates cultural variation in how friends and neighbors respond to domestic violence. While the social and health costs of domestic violence have been well established, most research focuses on the qualities of either the victim or the perpetrator, taking all other social interactions for granted. And while domestic violence research has revealed much about the characteristics of victims and perpetrators, interventions based on these findings have not reduced rates of violence. This may reflect a failure to incorporate into intervention policy and programs important conditions that frame domestic violence. This dissertation investigates how friends and neighbors of victims and abusers can impact violence in their communities by: 1) identifying cultural models for intervention; 2) exploring how willingness to act varies by situational factors and experience with domestic violence; and 3) assessing the influence of abuse type, relationship with person involved, and notions of blame and responsibility on action and inaction. Semi-structured vignette interviews were conducted with a sample of Connecticut residents in three communities representing various social and economic groups as well as rural and urban contrasts. Additionally, internet surveys were distributed to University of Connecticut students, faculty, and staff.

Findings identify competing cultural models for intervention. One model contends that the police should protect people from domestic violence, while an alternate model privileges the role of self and social networks in protecting domestic violence victims. A third model suggests that friends and neighbors should take it upon themselves to punish violent perpetrators. Intervention responses correspond to historical and personal trajectories. An understanding of the norms and assumptions that frame domestic violence can lead to the development of programs that encourage people to respond to violence in helpful and constructive ways.

Successfully defended on 12/16/2010

Jason Richard Mancini

"Beyond Reservation: Indian Survivance in Southern New England
and Eastern Long Island, 1713-1861"

The focus of this dissertation is the post-colonial survivance of Indian people in the New England region. Drawing from and developing local histories, this regional study integrates the varied experiences of individuals, families, and communities as they learned to live in what historian James Merrell calls the “Indians’ New World.” To understand the legacy of colonization or “invasion” in the New England region, this dissertation begins to connect Indian histories after the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century with those of the multi-racial and multi-ethnic “federal recognition” and “casino” Indians of the late twentieth century. In doing so, I examine and contextualize some of the more elusive aspects of Native American ethnohistory. To wit, this study addresses how Indians negotiated race, ethnicity, and identity, their varied responses to land dispossession, and their maintenance of social and kinship networks on land and at sea during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In this dissertation, I look beyond traditional approaches to Indian history. I argue that three interrelated factors formed the essence of Merrell’s so called “new core”: 1) continued connection to homeland (commonly, but not exclusively, reservations) 2) maintenance and expression of a particular Indian identity, and 3) the maintenance of social networks. While these components do not reflect a “new core,” per se, they were (and continue to be) aspects of Indian society and culture that have both persisted and have been overlooked in terms of the significance in the continuity of socio-cultural patterns. Homeland, identity, and kinship. Together, these were the few things Indians continued to share and over which they could individually or collectively exercise power.

Historians and anthropologists have approached New England ethnohistory in very distinct and, only occasionally, intersecting ways. I endeavor, in this dissertation, to transcend these disciplinary differences, building on the strengths of each but mindful of their weaknesses. This one-hundred-fifty year study will focus on aspects of Indian history that are rarely considered together: land, gender, mobility, labor, identity, race, rights, ethnic boundaries, and intercommunity connections. The central and unifying theme is community survivance.

Successfully defended on 6/16/2009

Blaire Ort Gagnon

"Powwow Arts and Crafts Markets and the
Engendering of Social Relationships"

Over the past quarter century, the scholarly work of George Marcus, Michael Fisher, Akhil Gupta, James Ferguson and others have challenged anthropology to think outside the box and called for experimental studies that could represent how local cultural worlds are embedded in complex and impersonal systems of political economy. What these authors saw as challenging was to represent how outside forces are integral parts of the construction and constitution of the inside, “the cultural unit itself” (Marcus and Fisher 1986: 77). In this dissertation, I have attempted to answer this call by focusing on contemporary powwow arts and crafts markets and the processes that influence the engendering of the social identities and relationships of its participants. It takes as its unit of study contemporary market participants, specifically organizing committees and arts and crafts vendors, and other stakeholders that have participated in the constitution of the powwow domain over the past century.
Central to this analysis has been a focus on how bordering practices—social, spatial, and temporal—delineate, and thus engender, difference among powwow participants and society at large through the circulation of powwow commodities as well as struggles over what can and cannot be made, sold, and by whom. I have employed ethnohistorical and multi-sited ethnographic methodologies in order to understand and ground historically the broader cultural structures that influence the contemporary powwow market. I suggest that the powwow market is part of the larger Indian Art field of cultural production, which over the past 100+ years has created a hierarchical structure of markets for Indian material culture that has marginalized the powwow arts and crafts market, its peoples, and objects. While powwow practices re-inscribe a trope of authenticity upon which the Indian Art field is constituted, they also counter these processes of marginalization through the creation of a robust and flexible community through criteria of membership based in ideas of kinship. Therefore, I argue, powwow markets are paradigmatic sites for understanding the struggles of post-colonial peoples reconstructing their identities and sense of place.

Successfully defended on 6/06/2009

Lara Louise Watkins

"Beyond Ethnicity as Risk Factor: Biocultural Context and Correlates of Type 2 Diabetes in a Cambodian American Community"

Clinicians and community leaders report diabetes as a substantial health threat within Cambodian American communities 25 years after resettlement. While ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer from diabetes, there is little research investigating the socio-cultural context of diabetes within refugee communities. While genetics may predispose an individual to a particular disease, the physical and social environments lead to its embodiment. Given a history of trauma and migration, this biocultural research uses a multi-theoretical framework to explore diabetes embedded in the larger experiences of Cambodian Americans in Southern New England. In addition to established risk factors, the research investigates the contribution of mental health, the status syndrome (those with lower status are at risk due to limited control and decreased social participation) and cultural consonance (the ability to live according to the standards of a culture) to diabetes risk. Data were elicited from adults in semi-structured interviews on explanatory models of diabetes, and in structured interviews targeting the experience of established and additional culturally mediated risk factors for diabetes. Cambodian American cultural models of diabetes are compared to a general American sample.

Grounded theory was used to elicit themes for semi-structured interview data. Correlation and logistic regression analyses were used for structured interview data.
Both the Cambodian and general American samples drew on biomedically accepted causes and symptoms of diabetes; yet, Cambodians discussed mental health associations, while the general American sample focused on physical symptoms. Cambodian Americans experience a variety of health concerns in the context of past experiences in Cambodia and current experiences in urban America. Family history and symptoms of depression are key predictive variables of diabetes status for this sample of Cambodian Americans. As an adaptation to the reality of life in the United States, diabetes may be used as an idiom of distress. The findings suggest target areas for the long-term health of refugees with overlapping, chronic physical and mental health concerns. The research contributes to an understanding of socio-cultural factors in chronic disease and health disparities.

Successfully defended on 10/31/2009

Elaine M. Bennett

"Understanding Childhood Malnutrition in a Maya Village in Guatemala: A Syndemic Perspective"

This dissertation examines the social, political ecological, economic and cultural context of childhood malnutrition in a Maya village in the western highlands of Guatemala. Considering childhood malnutrition to be the result of a combination of ecological factors, including human political, economic, and cultural systems and biotic and abiotic environmental factors, I use the UNICEF conceptual framework for understanding childhood malnutrition to structure an ethnographic analysis of the situation in the village of Santa Cruz la Laguna. This dissertation also specifically examines a juncture of this framework, the relationship between maternal education and child care behaviors and nutrition status. The results show that maternal education was not strongly correlated with improved child nutrition status, nor did it significantly change the way women in Santa Cruz fed their children. These results may be explained with reference to the high incidences of stunting (70%) and underweight (32%) among children between six and 36 months and the ethnographic data which indicates high exposure to multiple interacting factors that lead to malnutrition and poor quality of education. In the field site, impoverished economic conditions and geographic isolation contributed to food insecurity and flawed infrastructure for environmental sanitation increased residents' exposure to pathogens. Poor soil quality and small land holdings reduced possibilities for household food production by means of subsistence agriculture, gardening, and animal husbandry and also forced reliance on purchased food. Within households, common care practices including late introduction of complementary foods, laissez-faire feeding style for infants and toddlers, high intake of sugars and avoidance of fat resulted in developmentally inappropriate and insufficient diets for children in the vulnerable 6-36 month age range. Household food storage and hygiene practices also presented ample opportunity for cross-contamination and food borne illness. The complex set of interactions between economic factors, social dynamics, and local child care and feeding practices, led me to the realization that addressing childhood malnutrition can best be approached from a syndemics orientation. I argue that this orientation can build on existing knowledge regarding the determinants of childhood malnutrition and be used to promote and guide publicly owned, systemic changes that provide both short-term, stop-gap solutions and long-term, sustainable solutions to preventing childhood malnutrition and its related malefic effects.

Successfully defended on 4/30/09

Akeia A. Benard

"The Free African American Cultural Landscape at Newport, RI, 1774-1826"

The dissertation examines the process of community integration at Newport during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the development and maintenance of an African American elite, and community disintegration in the form of repatriation of community leaders to Africa through documentary evidence and material culture. The dissertation also examines the nature and scale of social interaction—such as community events, marriage patterns and neighborhood development—within the African American community between approximately 1774 (the year of the first census of free African Americans in Newport) and 1826 (the year community leaders repatriated to Liberia). This analysis will be placed within the context of contemporary theory in African American Ethnohistory and the presentation of African American history in Newport. Census documents, diaries, probates, deeds, and correspondences of the Free African Union Society of Newport offer primary accounts of the lifeways of African Americans in Newport during this time period.
While an African American community developed out of the recognition of a common plight with African-descended peoples throughout the globe and within Newport during the seventeenth century, this dissertation explores the emergence and mechanisms of social stratification within the African American community and the negotiation of racial and class identities. This dissertation serves as a critical and reflexive assessment of African American history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, specifically critiquing the absence of African American history in Newport public memory, tourism, and the landscape.

Successfully defended on 5/8/2008

James Cedric Woods

Contemporary Native American tribes of southern New England:
the Mashantucket Pequot of Connecticut and the Mashpee Wampanoag of Massachusetts

Contemporary Native American tribes of southern New England have been subjected to multiple waves of colonization, warfare, and disease, yet still manage to persist. This persistence is due not just to their adaptive ability in relation to the changes in their physical environment but also to their ability to change and adapt to the new social and political order in which they live. This dissertation is a study of how two of these tribes—the Mashantucket Pequot of Connecticut and the Mashpee Wampanoag of Massachusetts—have adapted the structure of their governments to deal with various colonial, state, town, and federal entities. It is a study of both change and continuity, as these tribes chose what worked and discarded failed strategies in order to ensure their survival.

Successfully defended in 2007

Candace Storey Alcorta

"Youth, Religion, and Resilience"

The incidence of depression and associated mental and behavioral disorders has increased globally over the past several decades and continues to increase in both developed and developing nations. These disorders constitute a major health risk and are particularly prevalent among adolescents. From 1960 to 1989 the rate of suicide among young people in the United States increased by 160% and continues to be one of the leading causes of death among adolescents. Not all adolescents subjected to risk factors develop depression. Accumulating research suggests that one factor that may contribute to adolescent resilience is religious involvement. The current study was undertaken in order to the examine effects of adolescent religious involvement on resilience, and to identify specific elements of religion that may contribute to those effects. Preliminary research consisted of a survey of 310 Connecticut university students. Results suggested beneficial effects of religion on depression and demonstrated a statistically significant effect of participation in religious ritual on ongoing religious involvement. The second and third phases of this study involved participant observation, interviews, and surveys of youth at church and school sites located in Connecticut and Florida. Data collected were statistically analyzed and effects of religious practices on religious beliefs were examined. Youth religion “cultures” were identified and compared in relation to daily activities, problem solving strategies, and mood variables. Findings indicated significant effects of religious belief and involvement in each of these domains. Youth who reported no religious involvement or belief were less likely to talk with friends when solving problems, less likely to spend time on family activities, and less likely to feel happy. These adolescents also reported greater difficulty concentrating than other teens in this study. Religiously involved youth were more likely to spend time on family activities, talk with friends to solve problems, feel calm and happy, and were less likely to ignore problems. This study identified specific elements of religious involvement that contribute to adolescent resilience by enhancing social skills, expanding problem solving strategies, and increasing positive affect.

Successfully defended on 5/8/ 2006